Elk lake trout and bass setups

[Islandeer]

I am asking for some typical gear setups to fish Elk lake for trout and bass. I’ll be in a boat.
many thanks.

[steel_ram]

Simple seems best. Wacky rig. Unweighted stick bait, ie. fake worm with a 1/0 hook through dead center. Cast near cover, especially overhanging branches near shore. Let it sink on a slack line and sit on the bottom for 30 seconds, retrieve and do it again. Watch your line and if a bass takes it reel into it. Don't jerk it. I find small mouth bass miss the hook most of the time with texas rig.

[IslandWanderer]

Gang troll/willow leaf, 2' line, apex (black and white or other).

Bass: pumpkin seed yum dinger on an offset hook (designed for plastics). Nothing else. Cast towards shore, slack line to allow to very slowly sink, occasional twitch, allow to continue sinking. Retrieve a little, then allow to sink again.

[Seth]

Our bass last weekend were on a white spinner bait. Water may be still a little cold for the soft plastics.

[ratherbefishin]

I live on Prospect Lake, lots of bass.Simpler is better.casting a plastic worm or a big night crawler( no weight) and letting it sink is very productiive and the rig doesn’t cost much if you hang up .Best trout gear is trolling on the surface either a small black dicknyhte spoon or Wedding band.Slowly
trolling a black plastic worm along the shoreline is productive for bass .If you get up at daybreak,and stand on the rock cliffs you can often see schools of bass patrolling the shore.No yellow perch in there like Elk lake , yet anyway.Used to. Hear bullfrogs a lot and see schools of big tadpoles but not so much now .

[steel_ram]

I've been getting them on soft baits and flys for the last three weeks on the south island lakes. Surface temp has hovered in the low fifties since then. Landed 10-12 yesterday, missed a bunch plus a couple of 14" trout. Takes seem less aggressive now than they were a week ago. When it heats up a bit I'll spend most of my time casting big flies at them. Great way to get rid of old steelhead patterns.

[Islandeer]

Thanks for all of the great info!

[steel_ram]

For trout, I'm still having my best luck on larger trout on flies, slow trolling or casting and stripping on a full sinking line. Elk isn't as good as it use to be for trout. It's turning into a bit of a swamp. Slime and weed. I fish other lakes for both. Prospect and Langford for the possibility of a bigger fish. I have caught 20+ inch trout in a few of the local smaller lakes, but mostly 12-14"r's on average.

[steel_ram]

It kind of bothers me that Bass have been totally opened up for retention/eradication. Small Mouth have been around here since at least the 1960's. They seem to co-exist with trout just fine. Don't know about the fairly recent introduction of Large mouth into Elk/Beaver.

[BriarPatch]

Fished quite a bit for Bass, always found a light action rod & drop shotting worked well for largemouth when other methods failed. They usually hang out very close to cover stumps, logs, rock piles etc.. Carolina rigs work well too in cold water slow down, downsize & finesse the fish.

For smallmouth on moving water did well with small tube baits.

Gary Yamamoto Senko worms seem to work well in colder water use smaller natural coloured presentations.

If you do not know how to drop shot pm me & I can explain.

[ratherbefishin]

There’s some really big cutthroat trout in Prospect,likely some of the original native stock.Occaisionaly you can see them in spawning channels ,it wouldn’t take much to enhance natural spawning habitat,maybe a load of drain rock would do it

[Islandeer]

Great idea, anyone know of an enchancement group for Prospect?

[ratherbefishin]

They put in ‘catchable size’ sterilized rainbow trout every year.not sure how big they can get though

[steel_ram]

Prospect got some of the larger brood stock this year. They don't advertise where they place them anymore. Year before it was Durrance. Recognizable by their rounded of tails and fins. If the fish can survive there's no reason they can't make it to 5 lbs plus. I catch 2-3 pounders quite regularly.

[ratherbefishin]

I like to top water fish for them with small black spoons( anything black seems to work well) but I think the bigger fish are deeper and likely take bigger baits